this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2022
1 points (100.0% liked)

Communism

9342 readers
45 users here now

Discussion Community for fellow Marxist-Leninists and other Marxists.

Rules for /c/communism

Rules that visitors must follow to participate. May be used as reasons to report or ban.

  1. No non-marxists

This subreddit is here to facilitate discussion between marxists.

There are other communities aimed at helping along new communists. This community isn't here to convert naysayers to marxism.

If you are a member of the police, armed forces, or any other part of the repressive state apparatus of capitalist nations, you will be banned.

  1. No oppressive language

Do not attempt to justify your use of oppressive language.

Doing this will almost assuredly result in a ban. Accept the criticism in a principled manner, edit your post or comment accordingly, and move on, learning from your mistake.

We believe that speech, like everything else, has a class character, and that some speech can be oppressive. This is why speech that is patriarchal, white supremacist, cissupremacist, homophobic, ableist, or otherwise oppressive is banned.

TERF is not a slur.

  1. No low quality or off-topic posts

Posts that are low-effort or otherwise irrelevant will be removed.

This is not a place to engage in meta-drama or discuss random reactionaries on lemmy or anywhere else.

This includes memes and circlejerking.

This includes most images, such as random books or memorabilia you found.

We ask that amerikan posters refrain from posting about US bourgeois politics. The rest of the world really doesn’t care that much.

  1. No basic questions about marxism

Posts asking entry-level questions will be removed.

Questions like “What is Maoism?” or “Why do Stalinists believe what they do?” will be removed, as they are not the focus on this forum.

  1. No sectarianism

Marxists of all tendencies are welcome here.

Refrain from sectarianism, defined here as unprincipled criticism. Posts trash-talking a certain tendency or marxist figure will be removed. Circlejerking, throwing insults around, and other pettiness is unacceptable.

If criticisms must be made, make them in a principled manner, applying Marxist analysis.

The goal of this subreddit is the accretion of theory and knowledge and the promotion of quality discussion and criticism.

Check out ProleWiki for a communist wikipedia.

Communism study guide

bottombanner

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml
CaptCalhoun@lemmygrad.ml
fidel_castro@lemmygrad.ml
supercooper25@lemmygrad.ml
Magpieinthesky@lemmygrad.ml
AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
1
Karl Popper's criticism of Marx (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by kretenkobr2@lemmygrad.ml to c/communism@lemmygrad.ml
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Karl Popper was a 20th century philosopher of science, best known for his work on falsifiability. He was critical of the ideas put forth by previous philosophers such as Carnap, that science works by verifying your theories through examination of the world. He said that many theories that were not scientific could be successfully verified by either making vague predictions, or through ad hoc adjustments to the theory. For example a horoscope can predict something vague like "you will have a pleasant surprise later this week". Then you find some forgotten money in your pocket, and the horoscope was seemingly verified to be true! However since nearly anything could have verified it, since it was so vague, this does not count as science.

He was particularly critical of Freud's theory of psychoanalysis and Marx's theory of historical materialism, both of which were considered scientific by many at the time, but seemed to explain almost all sets of observable data. Instead he suggested that scientific theories must put forwards highly specific predictions, and the scientists must then work to falsify, rather than verify, the theory.

top 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DongFangHong@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Breht and Alyson talk about this in their episode on Socialism: Utopian and Scientific when they talk about how Marxism is a science. Breht brought up some events that could falsify key pillars of Marxist thought (around 1:25 in)

  • Anarcho-capitalism gets established
  • If liberal democracy is able to resolve class conflict
  • A non-Marxist left ideology is able to lead and defend a world revolution
  • Fascism and imperialism is rooted out of liberal society

Any of these events happening would crush key views of Marxism.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml -2 points 2 years ago

Great response! I love the analysis that these would indeed meet the falsification retirement.

[–] Roof_Roach@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Popper’s (non-Marxist) disciple Paul Feyerabend pretty well undermined Popper’s view, essentially showing that many interesting and foundational scientific discoveries could not have been made if we exclusively followed the mode of what Popper calls science.

[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 2 years ago

My criticism of Popper's argument is that saying Marxism isn't a science because it can't make overly specific predictions of on to the-minute events is like saying Meteorology isn't scientific because you can't predict a tornado will strike at a certain time in a certain state and last for this many minutes.

Historical materialism was accepted by fact by even mainstream neoliberal economists like Adam Smith all the way up until it became cool to hate the Soviets for liberating their country from monarchs and capitalists.